Oxfam scandal is not about morality, but abuse of power

Kerry Boyd Anderson
arabnews.com
Originally posted February 18, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Two of these problems directly relate to the #metoo movement against sexual harassment and abuse. First, the Oxfam scandal is not about personal sexual immorality. It is about abuse of power and sexual exploitation. When these men entered a war zone or an area that had suffered a massive natural disaster, they were not dealing with women there on equal terms; they were in a position of power and relative wealth, and offered women in desperate circumstances money in exchange for sex. These women were part of the population the aid workers were supposed to be helping, so using them in this way constitutes a clear breach of trust. This is one of the #metoo movement’s key points — this type of behavior is not about personal morality, it is about abuse of power.

Another problem that the scandal highlights is the way that many organizations protect the men who are behaving badly. In the Oxfam case, the focus has been on one man in a leadership position: Roland van Hauwermeiren, who created an enabling environment and participated in the hiring of prostitutes. Van Hauwermeiren previously led a project team for the charity Merlin in Liberia, where a colleague reported that men on the team were hiring local women as prostitutes. After an internal investigation, he resigned. He later led Oxfam’s team in Chad, where similar accusations arose. Despite this, Oxfam put him in charge of a team in Haiti, where the behavior continued. Following an investigation, van Hauwermeiren resigned, but he then went on to work for Action Against Hunger in Bangladesh. 

The information is here.

Prison for psychologist had sex with patients

Perrin Stein
Gillette News Record
Originally published January 12, 2018

It was standing room only in the courtroom as dozens of people gathered Thursday afternoon to see a former Gillette psychologist sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting two patients.

“During my brief time as a therapist, I did more harm than good and acted in ways that will reverberate in these women’s lives for years to come,” Joshua Popkin, 33, said before being taken into custody to serve two consecutive three- to five-year prison sentences for two counts of second-degree sexual assault.

Popkin met the two patients while interning at Campbell County Health in 2015.

One of the patients was seeking treatment for mental health issues related to a previous rape by an assailant elsewhere, according to court documents. After treating her at CCH, he saw her at his private practice, where he made increasingly sexual advances toward her. In June 2016, he had forced sex with her, according to court documents.

The article is here.

For some evangelicals, a choice between Moore and morality

Marc Fisher
The Washington Post
Originally posted November 16, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

What’s happening in the churches of Alabama — a state where half the residents consider themselves evangelical Christians, double the national average, according to a Pew Research study — is nothing less than a battle for the meaning of evangelism, some church leaders say. It is a titanic struggle between those who believe there must be one clear, unalterable moral standard and those who argue that to win the war for the nation’s soul, Christians must accept morally flawed leaders.

Evangelicals are not alone in shifting their view of the role moral character should play in choosing political leaders. Between 2011 and last year, the percentage of Americans who say politicians who commit immoral acts in their private lives can still behave ethically in public office jumped to 61 percent from 44 percent, according to a Public Religion Research Institute/Brookings poll. During the same period, the shift among evangelicals was even more dramatic, moving from to 72 percent from 30 percent, the survey found.

“What you’re seeing here is rank hypocrisy,” said John Fea, an evangelical Christian who teaches history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa. “These are evangelicals who have decided that the way to win the culture is now uncoupled from character. Their goal is the same as it was 30 years ago, to restore America to its Christian roots, but the political playbook has changed.

The article is here.

And yes, I live in Mechanicsburg, PA, by I don't know John Fea.

Three professors under criminal investigation for sexual misconduct

The Dartmouth Senior Staff
The Dartmouth
Originally posted October 31, 2017

Three professors are alleged to have engaged in sexual misconduct and are being investigated by law enforcement, College President Phil Hanlon wrote in a campus-wide email Tuesday morning. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, the Grafton County Attorney’s office, the New Hampshire State Police, the Grafton County Sheriff’s office and the Hanover Police Department have all launched criminal investigations of the professors.

Psychology and brain sciences professors Todd Heatherton, Bill Kelley and Paul Whalen are on paid leave and their access to campus has been restricted, College spokesperson Diana Lawrence confirmed on Oct. 25. Lawrence said the professors were being investigated by the College for “allegations of serious misconduct.”

“It is important to remember that investigations are ongoing, with no official findings yet produced,” Hanlon wrote. “However, we take these allegations very seriously and are pursuing our own independent investigations in coordination with law enforcement officials.”

The College is cooperating with law enforcement officials, Hanlon wrote.

“I want to say in the most emphatic way possible that sexual misconduct and harassment are unacceptable and have no place at Dartmouth,” Hanlon wrote in his email. “Such acts harm us as individuals and as members of the community.”

The article is here.

Genitals photographed, shared by UPMC hospital employees: a common violation in health care industry

David Wenner
The Patriot News/PennLive.com
Updated September 16, 2017

You might assume anyone in healthcare would know better. Smart phones aren't new. Health care providers have long wrestled with the patient privacy- and medical ethics-related ramifications. Yet once again, smart phones have contributed to a very public black eye for a health care provider.

UPMC Bedford in Everett, Pa. has been cited by the Pennsylvania Department of Health after employees snapped and shared photos and video of an unconscious patient who needed surgery to remove an object from a genital. Numerous employees, including two doctors, were disciplined for being present.

It's not the first time unauthorized photos were taken of a hospital patient and shared or posted on social media.

• Last year, a nurse in New York lost her license after taking a smart phone photo of an unconscious patient's penis and sending it to some of her co-workers. She also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges.
• The Los Angeles Times in 2013 wrote about an anesthesiologist in California who put a sticker of a mustache on the face of an unconscious female patient, with a nurse's aid then taking a picture. That article also reported allegations of a medical device salesman taking photos of a naked woman without her knowledge.
• In 2010, employees at a hospital in Florida were disciplined after taking and posting online photos of a shark attack victim who didn't survive. No one was fired, with the hospital concluding the incident was the "result of poor judgement rather than malicious intent," according to an article in Radiology Today. 
• Many such incidents have involved nursing homes. An article published by the American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordination in 2016 stated, "In the shadow of the social media revolution, a disturbing trend has begun to emerge of [nursing home] employees posting and sharing degrading images of their residents on social media." An investigation published by ProPublica in 2015 detailed 47 cases since 2012 of workers at nursing homes and assisted living facilities sharing photos or videos of residents on Facebook. 

The article is here.

Are practitioners becoming more ethical?

By Rebecca Clay
The Monitor on Psychology
May 2017, Vol 48, No. 5
Print version: page 50

The results of research presented at APA's 2016 Annual Convention suggest that today's practitioners are less likely to commit such ethical violations as kissing a client, altering diagnoses to meet insurance criteria and treating homosexuality as pathological than their counterparts 30 years ago.

The research, conducted by psychologists Rebecca Schwartz-Mette, PhD, of the University of Maine at Orono and David S. Shen-Miller, PhD, of Bastyr University, replicated a 1987 study by Kenneth Pope, PhD, and colleagues published in the American Psychologist. Schwartz-Mette and Shen-Miller asked 453 practicing psychologists the same 83 questions posed to practitioners three decades ago.

The items included clear ethical violations, such as having sex with a client or supervisee. But they also included behaviors that could reasonably be construed as ethical, such as breaking confidentiality to report child abuse; behaviors that are ambiguous or not specifically prohibited, such as lending money to a client; and even some that don't seem controversial, such as shaking hands with a client. "Interestingly, 75 percent of the items from the Pope study were rated as less ethical in our study, suggesting a more general trend toward conservativism in multiple areas," says Schwartz-Mette.

The article is here.

Pornography and the Philosophy of Fiction

John Danaher
Philosophical Disquisitions
Originally published February 9, 2017

Here are two excerpts:

Pornography is now ubiquitous. If you have an internet connection, you have access to a virtually inexhaustible supply of the stuff. Debates rage over whether this is a good or bad thing. There are long-standing research programmes in psychology and philosophy that focus on the ethical and social consequences of exposure to pornography. These debates often raise important questions about human sexuality, gender equality, sexual aggression and violence. They also often touch upon (esoteric) aspects of the philosophy of speech acts and freedom of expression. Noticeably neglected in the debate is any discussion of the fictional nature of pornography and how it affects its social reception.

That, at any rate, is the claim made by Shen-yi Liao and Sara Protasi in their article ‘The Fictional Character of Pornography’. In it, they draw upon a number of ideas in the philosophy of aesthetics in an effort to refine the arguments made by participants in the pornography debate.

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The more important part of the definition concerns the prompting of imagination. Liao and Protasi have a longish argument in their paper as to why sexual desire (as an appetite) involves imagination and hence why pornographic representations often prompt imaginings. That argument is interesting, but I’m going to skip over the details here. The important point is that in satisfying our sexual appetites we often engage the imagination (imagining certain roles or actions). Indeed, the sexual appetite might be unique among appetites as being the one that can be satisfied purely through the imagination. Furthermore, the typical user of pornography will often engage their imaginations when using it. They will imagine themselves being involved (directly or indirectly) in the represented sexual acts.

The blog post is here.

How a doctor convicted in drugs-for-sex case returned to practice

Danny Robbins
Atlantic Journal Constitution
Part of a series on Physical and Sexual Abuse

Here is an excerpt:

“The pimp with a prescription pad” is what one prosecutor called him during a trial in which it was revealed that more than 400 sexually explicit photos of female patients and other women had been discovered in his office.

In some states, where legislatures have enacted laws prohibiting doctors who commit certain crimes from practicing, Dekle’s career would be over. But in Georgia, where the law gives the medical board the discretion to license anyone it sees fit, he was back in practice two years after leaving prison.

More than a dozen years later, that decision still leads some to wonder what the board was thinking.

“It’s particularly damning that he was using his ability to write prescriptions to further his sexual activities,” said Chris Dorsey, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent who led the probe that sent Dekle to prison. “A doctor burglarizes a house and then pays his debt to society, could he be a good doctor? I could argue it both ways. But when you have someone who abused everything centering on a medical practice to victimize all these people, that’s really a separate issue.”

The article is here.

Would Sex with a Robot Be Infidelity?

By Brandon Ambrosino
BBC.com
Originally posted 20 October 2016

Here is an excerpt:

No doubt Westworld will continue exploring questions most of us haven’t yet thought of. But we shouldn’t pretend these questions only belong to the domains of technologists and futurists. As social psychologist Sherry Turkle, who investigates our relationship with technology, has pointed out, our conversations about the future shouldn’t obsess over what robots will be like. Instead, she says, we should think what kind of people we will be, what kind of people we are becoming, every day, whether we’re watching porn, making love to our partners, trying to outsmart Siri or killing an avatar for no other reason than that’s what happens in a video game.

The article is here.

Why Are So Many Millennials Having Zero Sex?

By Jesse Singal
The Science of Us
Originally posted August 2, 2016

When it comes to millennials and sex, there are two narratives going on at the moment, and they clash pretty severely. One, expressed in the form of panicky think pieces about Kids These Days, argues that because of the rise of dating apps, a reduced emphasis on commitment, and various other factors, young people are having casual sex at a higher rate than ever before, and this may be causing psychological problems, particularly for young women, who — so the story usually goes — don’t get as much out of casual sex as the guys they are hooking up with.

The other narrative is that, well, the kids are all right. Even assuming there is something wrong with safe, consensual casual sex (and the proper answer to that question is it’s complicated), some researchers who track generational differences in behavior have found something that might surprise the panickers: if anything, today’s young people are hooking up less than members of past recent generations did when they were the same age. In an article published last year in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, for example, Jean Twenge of San Diego State University and Ryne Sherman of Florida Atlantic University wrote that, among adults, the “[n]umber of sexual partners increased steadily between the G.I.s and 1960s-born Gen X’ers [with Boomers in the middle] and then dipped among Millennials to return to Boomer levels.” That is, millennials, on average, appear to be having sex with fewer people than Gen-Xers did when they were at the same age, and about the same amount of sex as the boomers did when they were in their younger years.

The article is here.

'It Just Happened'

By Jake New
Inside Higher Ed
August 2, 2016

Either by choice or when required to do by state legislation, colleges in recent years have moved toward a policy of affirmative consent.

The change moves colleges away from the old “no means no” model of consent -- frequently criticized by victims’ advocates as being too permitting of sexual encounters involving coercion or intoxication -- to one described as “yes means yes.” If the student initiating a sexual encounter does not receive an “enthusiastic yes” from his or her partner, the policies generally state, there is no consent.

Research by two California scholars, however, suggests that students’ understanding of consent is not in line with the new policies and laws. Instead, students often obtain sexual permission through a variety of verbal and nonverbal cues, both nuanced and overt, that do not always meet a strict definition of affirmative consent.

The article is here.

How to Hold Research 'Rock Stars' Accountable for Sexual Harassment

By Sarah Brown
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally posted July 21, 2016

How should professors found responsible for sexual harassment be punished? How can colleges encourage victims -- often graduate students who work closely with their harassers -- to come forward? On Tuesday a panel featuring two scholars, a member of Congress, a university official, and a journalist tackled those questions and others about harassment in the sciences and in academe more broadly.

The panel, which took place at the University of California at San Francisco and was broadcast on Facebook Live, was hosted by Rep. Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, who in January drew attention for taking a stand against sexual harassment in the sciences, in a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The article is here.

Fool Me Twice, Shame on You; Fool Me Three Times, I’m a Medical Board

by David Epstein
ProPublica
Originally published July 15, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

The Journal-Constitution analyzed public records from every single state. The low-bar-good-news is that “the vast majority of the nation’s 900,000 licensed physicians don’t sexually abuse patients.” Hurrah. The bad news is that the AJC couldn’t determine the extent of the problem due to reporting practices that give as much information as a teenager asked about his day at school. Except minus “fine.”

What else?

Some cases were truly egregious, particularly when “hospitals … fail to report sexual misconduct to regulators, despite laws in most states requiring them to do so.” For example: the AJC reported that one doctor was fired by three Tennessee hospitals (twice for sexual misconduct), but incurred no medical board actions.

The information is here.

Harvard Tells Profs Not to Sleep With Undergrads

By John Lauerman

Bloomberg Business

Originally posted February 5, 2015

Harvard University banned professors from having “sexual or romantic relationships” with undergraduates, joining a list of campuses that have taken similar steps.

Many colleges discourage but don’t ban sex between professors and students. While a national professors’ group doesn’t favor such a prohibition, recent moves by Harvard, Yale University and the University of Connecticut suggest the tide may be turning.

The entire story is here.

Sodomy Hazing Leaves 13-Year-Old Victim Outcast in Colorado Town

By Chris Staiti & Barry Bortnick
Bloomberg News - Jun 20, 2013

At the state high-school wrestling tournament in Denver last year, three upperclassmen cornered a 13-year-old boy on an empty school bus, bound him with duct tape and sodomized him with a pencil.

For the boy and his family, that was only the beginning.

The students were from Norwood, Colorado, a ranching town of about 500 people near the Telluride ski resort. Two of the attackers were sons of Robert Harris, the wrestling coach, who was president of the school board. The victim’s father was the K-12 principal.

After the principal reported the incident to police, townspeople forced him to resign. Students protested against the victim at school, put “Go to Hell” stickers on his locker and wore T-shirts that supported the perpetrators. The attackers later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, according to the Denver district attorney’s office.

“Nobody would help us,” said the victim’s father, who asked not to be named to protect his son’s privacy. Bloomberg News doesn’t identify victims of sexual assault. “We contacted everybody and nobody would help us,” he said.

High-school hazing and bullying used to involve name-calling, towel-snapping and stuffing boys into lockers. Now, boys sexually abusing other boys is part of the ritual. More than 40 high school boys were sodomized with foreign objects by their teammates in over a dozen alleged incidents reported in the past year, compared with about three incidents a decade ago, according to a Bloomberg review of court documents and news accounts.

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About 4,000 sexual assaults occur each year inside U.S. public schools, as well as 800 rapes or attempted rapes, according to a letter the U.S. Education Department sent to educators in April 2011.
“We don’t tolerate this anywhere else in our society,” said Antonio Romanucci, a Chicago attorney representing some of the alleged Maine West victims in a civil lawsuit. “So why are we tolerating it in our schools?”

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Lamar Freed for this article.

Prominent Hilton Head psychologist’s license revoked; Sex with patient alleged

By Alice Stice
The State (South Carolina News Site)
Originally published May 31, 2013

A prominent Hilton Head Island psychologist has had his license permanently revoked for having a sexual relationship with a patient that included intimate encounters in his office, according to an order from the S.C. Board of Examiners in Psychology.

Dr. Howard Rankin, a psychologist, neuropsychologist and author who has been featured in the national media, admitted the relationship to an investigator from the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulation and is barred from practice after an April disciplinary hearing before the board, records show.

Rankin has been featured as an expert on addiction, weight loss and other fields in The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, and has appeared as a guest on CNN and ABC’s “The View” and “20/20.”

He declined to comment for this article.

According to the board’s order, a female patient diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder began seeing Rankin for therapy in 2005. The patient, referred to only by her initials in the order, had attempted suicide on several occasions and had been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment more than once, the order says.

The entire story is here.

Physician Congressman Fined for Having Sex With 2 Patients

By Robert Lowes
Medscape Medical News
Originally published on May 24, 2014

Rep. Scott DesJarlais, MD (R-TN), was fined $500 by the state medical board in Tennessee for having sexual relationships with 2 female patients in 2000, according to a consent order approved by the board on May 22.

The Board of Medical Examiners of Tennessee also reprimanded Dr. DesJarlais, characterizing his behavior as "unprofessional conduct."

Dr. DesJarlais, a general practitioner who was first elected to represent Tennessee's Fourth Congressional District in 2010, signed the consent order on May 20.

The consent order describes in bare-bones fashion what was laid out in voluminous detail about Dr. DesJarlais' personal life during and after his 2012 reelection campaign. From roughly January 2000 to May 2000, Dr. DesJarlais "had a sexual relationship with 2 female patients," the order states. "No documentation exists to show whether or not the physician-patient relationship was severed prior to the commencement of a romantic relationship with either female patient."

The board fined Dr. DesJarlais $250 for each patient. He also is responsible for the state's cost of prosecuting the case, up to $1000.

The rest of the story is here.

Should I Report My Ex-Wife for Sleeping With Her Patient?

By Chuck Klosterman
The New York Times - The Ethicist
Originally published April 26, 2013

My ex-wife is a physician. We divorced when I found out she was having an affair with one of her H.I.V.-positive patients. I feel compelled to tell the state medical licensing board and the professional societies to which she belongs about her affair. My reasons for doing so are that I feel an intense urge to retaliate her breach of trust and that she potentially exposed me to H.I.V. (fortunately, I tested negative). I also know that, as a physician myself, I should report her to protect other patients, so that she may get increased supervision at her workplace and treatment if needed. Should I report her even though my main motivation is revenge?

The entire article is here.

When Is It Okay to Date a Patient?

By Shelly Reese
Medscape Ethics Report 2012
Originally published November 15, 2012


Introduction

To the besotted poet, love is intoxicating, exasperating, invigorating. To the doctor -- if the would-be paramour is a patient -- it's also unethical.

But physician responses to Medscape's 2012 ethics survey clearly indicate that many physicians aren't willing to condemn every romance. When asked, "Is it ever acceptable to become involved a romantic or sexual relationship with a patient?" more than two thirds (68%) of the 24,000 doctors who responded resoundingly say "no."

In contrast, nearly one third are more nuanced in their view. Only a tiny minority (1%) give romance with current patients a green light, but a sizable share (22%) say that a romantic relationship with a former patient may be acceptable, as long as at least 6 months have passed since the professional relationship was terminated. Another 9% say the ethics depend on the situation.

Whereas the American Medical Association (AMA) clearly states that sexual contact that is concurrent with the doctor/patient relationship constitutes sexual misconduct, it takes a fuzzier position on relationships that might develop later. The AMA notes that the prior doctor/patient relationship may unduly influence the patient and that such a relationship is unethical if the doctor "uses or exploits trust, knowledge, emotions or influence derived from the previous professional relationship."

Ethicists, such as Dr. Richard Martinez, director of forensic psychiatry services at Denver Health Medical Center and the author of several articles on ethical decision-making and the patient/physician relationship, says the AMA was wise to leave a little wiggle room in its opinion.

"Relationships are complicated," he says. "Every ethical dilemma has to be evaluated and considered on a case-by-case basis."

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Gary Schoener for this information.

Pa. Supreme Court rules general practitioners not held to sex prohibitions

Prohibitions stands for mental health care providers

By Zack Needles

The Legal Intelligencer

Originally published October 15, 2012

In a case of first impression, the state Supreme Court has ruled that general practitioner doctors are not barred from having consensual sex with a patient, even if they are also providing "incidental mental health treatment" to the patient.

In so doing, the court has refused to extend the prohibition that prevents mental health physicians from having consensual sex with their patients -- and makes those who do susceptible to medical malpractice suit -- to general practitioners and family doctors.

In Thierfelder v. Wolfert, the high court ruled 5-1 -- suspended Justice Joan Orie Melvin did not participate in the decision -- to reverse a divided May 2009 Superior Court ruling that both general practitioners and psychiatrists "need to maintain the same trust when rendering psychological care."

Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, writing for the majority, said that even what might constitute an ethical violation does not necessarily amount to a legal violation.

"The question is not whether this court condones appellant's actions, nor even whether his actions amounted to a violation of medical ethics," Justice Castille said. "We hold here only that, as a general practitioner, appellant was under no specific or 'heightened' duty in tort to refrain from sexual relations with his patient under these circumstances."

The entire story is here.